Ten years of studies and a 120 million euro investment in the Balvano plant in Basilicata where 150 new hires were specially made: with these numbers, the latest creation of the Ferrero brand is born, which inaugurates the entry of the famous brand from Alba into the world of biscuits. And the numbers that the company expects are also large, expecting to achieve more than 80 million euros in turnover in the first year alone.
To present its latest creation to the world of consumers in Italy, Ferrero has organized things big: an impressive promotional campaign which on 4 and 5 November will involve 1000 employees who will be testimonials of the goodness of the product they make in 4.000 points of sale. But in Milan "Casa Nutella" has already been opened in Piazza Gae Aulenti where the public can taste the Bisquits in preview and then express their liking. Taste reactions will be detected with tablets and will help to feed a 'counter' that has the shape of a heart imprinted on Nutella Biscuits.
55 years after its birth, Ferrero is therefore throwing itself headlong into a totally new but long-studied sector dominated up to now by Barilla.
Its Nutella biscuits, a casket of shortcrust pastry that combines the crunchiness and friability typical of shortbread biscuits with the taste and creaminess of filled with Nutella, which represents 40% of the product, are made with selected ingredients, hazelnut and cocoa cream 40% (sugar, palm oil, hazelnuts 13%, skimmed milk powder 8,7%, low-fat cocoa 7,4%, emulsifiers: lecithins (soy); vanillin ), wheat flour (32%), vegetable fats (palm, palm kernel), cane sugar (9%), lactose, wheat bran, whole milk powder, barley and corn malt extract powder, honey, raising agents (disodium diphosphate, ammonium hydrogen carbonate, sodium hydrogen carbonate), lean cocoa, salt, wheat starch, malted barley flour, emulsifiers: lecithins (soy), vanillin.
Alessandro d'Este, CEO of Ferrero Italy he has no doubts: the product will produce an amazing result. “We expect 80 million turnover in the first 12 months and 25 million units sold We will be the first biscuit on the market So there is great ambition but also great joy in giving this moment of happiness to Italians”.
The Nutella biscuits have had a dress rehearsal in France months ago in the spring and during this period they achieved sales three times higher than those of the first product on the market. So the premises are all there.
The reference market in Italy is extremely attractive and is worth about 1,2 billion. Ferrero he estimates a turnover between 70 and 90 million within the first 12 months with over 25 million bags sold which will enter 7 million families.
In Balvano - Alessandro d'Este announced in the presentation conference - a highly technological and avant-garde line has been created with a futuristic artificial intelligence system which includes, for example, 18 vision systems installed for a capillary control of product quality . But there is also the “picker” island, the largest in the world with over 40 mechanical arms 7 robots and about 200 engines. “It took 8 months to assemble and it is the most innovative and complex line that Ferrero has ever created”. And from Balvano the Nutella Bisquits will also leave for Europe.
